


The Throne Upon the Height

by Percevale



Category: Sunless Skies
Genre: Gen, Written in about 30 minutes, spoilers for The Truth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28720368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Percevale/pseuds/Percevale
Summary: The Judgement of Death, who has no name, requests a diplomatic meeting with Her Majesty the Eternal Empress.A short dialogue between Death and the Empress.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	The Throne Upon the Height

The Empress wears a mask, these days. No one knows why, and no one is foolish enough to comment on it. The mask is made of an opaque silver-white glass, not like the clear glacier of frozen Time that is the Throne of Hours. The Throne still stands, as stark and cold as ever, and light cascades through the facets inside it and goes spilling off in cataracts as sharp as knives throughout the room.  
Hear it now- the ticking of the great clock. Where is the clock? Everywhere. The light, where it passes over your skin, distorts it for a second. Wrinkles fade or deepen. Muscle swells back into freshness, or hair grows grey. The guards are changed out often.

“Seeking an audience with Her Renewed Majesty,” says the Steward of Time, whose hair is the froth-white of seafoam and whose eyes are large and half-blind with starry cataracts, “The Judgement of the Dead.” There are other things that the Judgement of the Blue Kingdom is called in Albion, and this is one of the more flattering ways to introduce him. “Lord of the Blue Kingdom, previously of London.” 

“Just Doctor is fine,” interjects the Judgement, who has not waited to be properly invited into the throne room. “Ransom, if you must. Death, maybe- that's what I _am_.” 

Her Renewed Majesty, the Eternal Empress of The British Empire, Albion, and the Soon-To-Be-Conquered Territories _shines_. Her gown is cloth-of-hours that reflect the glories of days gone by. There is gold woven into her greying hair, and a web of Correspondence glyphs carved into her jewelry casts sparks from wrist to shoulder and down her veils and skirts. Her eyes are pale and cold behind the mask. 

Death, Judgement of the Blue Kingdom, Spinner of the All-Web, self-professed anarchist, is wearing dark and shabby clothes several centuries out of date. There are patches on both his knees and the elbow of his long coat- once black, now more of a dark and muddy grey. “Do you mind if I smoke?” he asks, and doesn’t wait for an answer. His accent is strikingly Irish.

The Empress did not become the conqueror of history for nothing- her eyes show the beginning of recognition, even after three centuries. “You have been here before,” she says. “The Irishman revolutionary who found our bomb.”  
  
“ _Your_ bomb?” repeats Death, lighting his cigarette with a flicker-lick of Correspondence fire.

“One wonders,” says the Empress, dismissing the comment, “What Death’s ultimate goal might be. The destruction of _chronology?_ Death, of course, can be removed. Light can be removed, or Gravity, or War. But for consciousness, one must have Time.” She is standing now- she is shorter than Death, but she stands up straight, and he slouches a little.

The lean-faced Irishman thinks for a moment. “Not destruction,” he says, smiling. “Decentralization. A freedom of movement.” 

He gestures, a thin ribbon of smoke trailing behind his hand. The Correspondence sigils embedded in the crystalline throne yearn for the mote of fire between his fingers, and the mingled blue and gold fire reflects from his glasses. “And Death is still there. It’s just been freed from causality.” 

“Freedom from causality or permanence, one might say, makes Death no longer _Death._ Sleep, rather.”

In a moment, his face hardens, and he turns sharply to look her in the eye. The movement dislodges something small and silver that was hanging around his neck. “I saw what lay beyond Death’s Door. A hundred thousand souls torn apart by the cruel machinery of Judgement and drunk like wine. Is that Death to you, then? For everything you are to be devoured by some creature that understands _nothing_ of what you are?”

“We will not die,” says the Empress. Her mask turns slightly to the necklace. A crucifix.

“They told me you were Roman Catholic,” she says, a note of that old mockery coming into her voice. “Are you _still?”_

“Always,” says Death, and pulls from his cigarette again.

“You know we are _gods._ The laws of this universe bow to the Judgements.”

“Not Justice,” he says softly. His good eye shines behind his glasses- the other socket is set with a clear and shimmering stone, which is more beautiful but not more fierce.

“Some anarchist,” the Empress tells him. 

“How is religion in Albion? The _New Sequence._ I saw that clockwork abomination you call a god on my way in.” Death nods towards the great windows, through which the hissing, guttering horror of the Clockwork Sun’s light streams in flickering and inconstant rays of gold. “Does it still _hate_ you?”

“The Empire’s engineers have grown more skilled at the maintenance of the Sun. One regrets the side effects, but it is only a matter of time before they are dealt with. And Time we have in plenty.”

“For now,” says Death. “Your armies will fall. Your walls, and your transit relays, and your new and shining engines and starships.”  
  
“We are the Conquerer of Time-”

“And I’ve killed Judgements before.” He pinches out the cigarette between his scarred fingers, and lets the butt fall. It hangs in the air a few seconds, held there by the shifting flow of Time around them. Sparks swirl in the air.

And then the cigarette butt falls onto the crystal Throne, and Death puts it out with the heel of his boot. “You know how to reach me,” he says. And turns away. The Steward splutters. A guard reaches out to grab his shabby arm- her hand comes away burning with a thin white flame, blisters rising on the skin.

Death tucks his hands into his pockets. The door slams shut behind him, like the tolling of a great bell.

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine being the Queen of England and Death rolls up and he's Irish.
> 
> More might be to come, but here's...something. I'd also love to do something talking about the members of the crew who are still around in the future- most notably the Devil and the Hoarder babies, but there are a few other crew members I suspect might be lingering.


End file.
